


A Width, A Shining Peace

by Tibby



Category: War Horse (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-19
Updated: 2012-01-19
Packaged: 2017-10-29 19:31:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323329
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/pseuds/Tibby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the war is over, three former cavalrymen find some solace in tending a vegetable garden.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Width, A Shining Peace

_“He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.”_ \- Psalm 23:2

 

“Is this heaven?” Jim had asked.

It was a mild day, just warm enough for Charlie to decide to go bathing in the river. Jim and Jamie were sitting on the bank, contemplating whether to join him. They were sharing the last cigarette they had, and Jamie passed it over to Jim as he offered his opinion on the matter.

“It feels as though it could be.”

“No, it’s far too cold,” said Charlie, dragging his white body from the water and on to the grass, “It must be England.”

 

Indeed, the sun shone as gloriously as it had ever done on one of England’s finer days. To Jim, it was the sun of a long day’s ride in the countryside of Somerset. To Charlie, it was the sun that had shone through the window of his childhood home. To Jamie, it was the very particular sun of an England that hadn’t yet tainted his patriotic heart. It was not only away from the war, it half convinced him that such terrible things could never have existed.

In their cottage in the country, Jamie and Jim and Charlie were all in agreement that they couldn’t be happier. The cottage was smaller and less comfortable than any house they had previously lived in but they didn’t care much. Jim liked “roughing it”, as he called it. Jamie was a military man who rarely acknowledged a hardship. Charlie never tired of complaining how they were always on top of one another, but that was mainly because he enjoyed complaining. They spent most of their time outdoors in any case. Jamie and Jim would go out riding for miles. When they weren’t out, they were usually in the stables, chatting to each other as they took care of the horses. Or they would return to Charlie who would be waiting for them on the lawn, usually with a book and a glass of brandy.

There came a time when supplies were getting low - they were down to tins of sardines and some questionable water biscuits. Jamie had the feeling that there was probably a town nearby where they could buy food but Charlie wouldn’t hear of it. He hated straying too far from the cottage, and, more than that, he hated Jim or Jamie disappearing for too long. Even before the war, there had been something about Charlie that had been, not exactly fragile, but… tense, perhaps. Jamie and Jim felt no qualms in doing whatever was needed to sooth his anxiety. They knew that he was braver than either of them if put to it, but they no longer wanted him to have to be.

 

The very next afternoon, Charlie was searching above the stables for a toolbox when he came across a great amount of seeds in a crate. He brought them down to show the others.

“Well,” said Jim, “Carrots, turnips, runner beans, asparagus… Perhaps we needn’t leave to find food at all. We can be gentleman gardeners.”

Jamie looked over to the garden and frowned. The pretty flower beds, the perfectly kept lawn… “It seems a shame to ruin it.”

“We’re not ruining it,” Jim assured him, “We’re making it useful.”

 

As always, Jim and Charlie won Jamie to their point of view. Together they dug up the lawn and the beds. Then they sowed the seeds, following the instructions of a gardeners’ handbook they had found on a bookshelf in the cottage. With the trees that were already growing they had pears and damsons as well as vegetables.

Jamie, however, remained uneasy about digging up the garden. He couldn’t quite explain why. He couldn’t explain, either, why he disliked tending it, knowing how the flowers that had grown there previously had seemed to require nothing from him.

 

There was still plenty of tea in the house, thank God. They had all been brought up on afternoon tea, but they had abandoned it in favour of an evening cup around the fire.

Their talk that night was of their old life in the cavalry. It often was. It was something they had all shared, after all. Even while feeling it pain them, they would rake up memories and laugh over them. They each had only one thing that the others knew never to mention.

Charlie was mother and passed around the drinks.

“I can’t think of a profession I would have enjoyed more,” mused Jim, smiling, “That’s the tragedy of it.”

Charlie interrupted immediately. He loved starting arguments with Jim; it was such good sport.

“Are you saying I was lucky because I never intended to be in the cavalry?”

“You know that’s not what I meant. Don’t make trouble.”

“All right, do you think we would have joined up if… we had, well, _known_?”

Jim took a moment or two to consider.

“I’m not sure. I think I probably would have. I couldn’t have lived like my parents did, I’m sure of that. I never particularly wanted a family. I didn’t like long, drawn out dinners. I only cared about keeping the house because my mother did. I only wanted to be out on the hunt. I think a few years more and I might have found out what I did want, but as it was…”

Jamie was silent, staring at the clock on the mantelpiece. It was fixed permanently to twenty two minutes past twelve.

“We all know what Jamie will say,” said Charlie.

“Jamie would never surrender,” nodded Jim.

Jamie turned his head to them. He saw Charlie’s skeletal face smile innocently at him. Charlie, who had been imprisoned for most of the war, turned free in 1918 and who had died of hunger before making it to Calais. He saw the blood weeping from Jim’s chest, where the bullet had hit.

He bolted from his chair, staggering out to the fresh air.

 

“Feeling better?”

Jamie knew it was Jim but he turned to see him anyway. His instinct was to nod and smile, yet he couldn’t. He shook his head. He meant to stay silent but the words burst from him as soon as Jim was by his side.

“You and Charlie should leave this place. Who knows what kind of hell you’re in here, with me.”

“Jamie, what on Earth are you talking about?” Jim said, gently.

“Hell. That’s what I’m talking about. All those men under my care. Not just you and Charlie but all of them. You saw what I led them into.”

If Jim expected him to cry for the first time since he was a child, then he was disappointed, but his voice trembled as he spoke, in that way that tells of more than tears.

“There’s a place for men who cannot shoulder their responsibility, and you shouldn’t be in a place like that. It’s all down to me. I should have taken better care of them. Good men. Friends. I should… I should have taken better care of _you_.”

Jim let him say all he needed to. Then he put an arm around him and turned him to face the former lawn where their seeds were growing.

“Jamie, listen to me, I don’t want you to consider it any more…”

Jamie began to protest, “I was responsible for…” But Jim called him back to silence.

“We’re somewhere else now. Somewhere else altogether. Take care of this garden,” Jim told him, “Take care of us.”


End file.
